7 – Stepping Stone

“I can’t believe my dad’s rolling over like this! He’s just going to let them have the shop? I grew up there, Tony!” Tony nodded and grunted his agreement, and Addie glared at him, moving forward and turning to walk backward so he was forced to look at her. “Are you even listening?”

“Yeah, Addie, I’m listening. I just, well… What’s he supposed to do? He doesn’t own the building. Sure, he’s got a lease, but when it runs out, they’re just gonna jack up the rent. Meanwhile, they can mess with him—electrical problems, plumbing problems, construction equipment in front of the shop, renovations on the neighboring buildings. I mean, I could go on and on. Your dad even said the neighborhood’s changing, most of his friends—”

Addie threw her hands up, frustration getting the better of her. “I might as well be talking to my dad.” With that parting volley, she turned and picked up her pace, trying to leave him behind. She knew she was being childish, and she wasn’t exactly going to be making any dramatic exits; they were on their way to see Torque, so the best she could do was walk by herself and give him a cold shoulder for a few blocks.

Irritatingly, Tony didn’t hurry after her. He gave her space. She knew this because at the next corner, she glanced over her shoulder only to see him several buildings back, hands in his pockets, his gaze distant, like his mind was anywhere but on her little tantrum. “Whatever!” she huffed, turning to continue her angry walk toward the Ninety-Nine.

They’d been to the club a few times by then, and she felt increasingly comfortable with the neighborhoods closer to the district's center, even in the evening. She didn’t want to think that having several successful jobs under her belt as an operator was getting to her head, but maybe that was the case. She and Tony had cleared quite a few decent paydays in the last couple of weeks, at least by Addie’s standards, and he’d continued to train her on all sorts of aspects of the job.

Maybe that had more to do with her comfort in the busier parts of the district than her successes. Growing up in the Blast, she’d learned long ago what danger looked like in the district. She could recognize bangers looking for trouble from two blocks away. It was something she hadn’t really thought about until Tony brought it up and helped her to see that ability as an asset. He’d helped her to be more active about it, applying the same tactics to all sorts of environments—inside buildings, at markets, even in small, closed meetings like the ones they had with Torque.

“I have to admit, JJ,” she said with a sigh, turning to the poor, simple PAI for a sounding board, “he’s really good to me. He’s patient and basically spends all of his free time helping me to get better at things, like shooting or recognizing the difference between concealment and cover. And he opened a business account with me! All of our profits are still there—what’s he even living on?”

“I can assume from your last statement that you’re referring to Tony. I’m afraid I can only speculate on his finances. Perhaps—”

“I know, I know. Don’t worry about it.” Addie stopped at the last corner and waited before turning toward the club. When Tony came strolling up, she glared at him. “Don’t you ever think you should chase after an upset girl?”

He arched an eyebrow. “I’m here…”

“I mean faster! Doesn’t it bother you that I’m upset?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure it does. I figured I was the one irritating you, so I thought you might want me to give you some space.”

“Ugh!” Addie groaned, shoving him toward the club to get him walking. “I’m not mad at you! I’m mad at the situation. It’s frustrating because I know you’re right, and I guess, under it all, I feel guilty. It’s my fault that a corporation wants to build housing units there for their employees. It’s my—”

“Nah, c’mon, don’t flatter yourself. Sooner or later, some corp was going to move in there. I mean, we just broke the news a little early, so it’s not the one that was trying to squeeze people out.”

“Don’t flatter myself?” Addie gave him another shove, and he laughed.

“You’re getting too comfortable shoving me around; I guess it’s about time we started practicing some hand-to-hand combat, huh?”

“Is that a threat?” Addie smiled, grabbing his arm and hanging on to it as they walked. He always leaned into her a little when she did that, so she could tell he liked it. She just wished she could figure out why he never tried anything more. Sure, he put his arm over her shoulders sometimes and they joked around, but—

“I’m joking, but I’m not; I’d like you to be able to defend yourself even if your gun isn’t within reach.”

“That’s what you’re for,” she teased.

“I’m serious!” He clicked his tongue. “You know I’m not perfect. Think about when those guys grabbed you in the street. What could you have done?”

Addie frowned, annoyed that he was bringing that up, but she did as he asked and thought about it. “I should have noticed them coming. I should have been more aware of my surroundings.”

“Good!” Tony nodded. “But if they snuck up on you anyway, what could you have done when they grabbed you?”

“I’m not sure. I tried to fight them off. They were so fast, though, and then the hood…” Addie trailed off, squeezing her eyes shut, trusting Tony to guide them for a few steps. She didn’t want to think about that night.

“Yeah, I know. It’s okay.” She felt him move to the right and followed, blinking to clear the sudden moisture in her eyes. He was steering them around a street performer—an elderly man with one leg playing a synth-guitar and singing in a deep, sorrowful voice. “I just wanted to make a point; there are things you could have done, and I should probably help you learn them. That’s all.”

“Like what, though? I don’t exactly weigh a lot, Tony. There were some big guys in that crew—a big woman.”

Tony nodded and, since they were close to the club, he slowed, pulling her to the side of a building so they could talk before arriving. “Size is important in a fair fight—I mean, yeah, it’s important in any fight, but there are things you can do to compensate. Speed and accuracy are key for smaller fighters—knowing when, where, and how to hit soft spots. Being able to make an opening for escape is just as important. You don’t have to beat everyone up to get away. I mean, then there are blades and augments that make even small limbs deadly. I’m not saying we need to turn you into a killer assassin, but I’d feel better if we practiced some things.”

Addie loved his earnestness, his open, cards-on-the-table desire to protect her. He wasn’t trying to make her feel bad or less-than; he was just honestly concerned for her safety. She sniffed, took his hand, the one that could feel her touch properly, and cupped it between hers. Looking into his silvery eye, she said, “Thank you. I’m sorry I took out my frustrations about my dad’s place on you.”

He smiled and winked. “Guess my ruse to distract you worked—”

“Jerk!” She laughed and let go of his hand, turning back to the club. “Let’s go meet Torque.”

A few minutes later, they were standing outside the private lounge with Torque’s muscle, waiting for someone else to leave before they could go in. “Boss wants you to stand over there,” the big, gun-armed monster said, gesturing toward a fire exit at the end of the hall.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“C’mon, Ember,” Tony said, ambling down the hallway. When Addie caught up to him, he added, “Torque doesn’t want whoever’s in there to know we’re here to meet with him. It’s probably another crew or maybe a client. Part of a fixer’s job is to manage and maintain that separation.”

Tony leaned a shoulder against the wall, facing the door, so Addie moved around to face him. From that angle, she could still see the door. Was he trusting her to watch his back, then? He always did little things like that. Someone who didn’t know him might think he didn’t care what was happening behind him—that he was lazy or stupid or…not sharp. Addie knew better. He wouldn’t turn his back to all those doors and that meathead with the gun built into his arm if he didn’t have Addie looking that way. The question was, did he do it for her, to show trust, or did he do it so the muscle would think Tony was sloppy?

“I can always tell when your brain’s working on something. You still thinking about your dad’s place?”

Addie shook her head. “No. I’ll put that on the back burner since he’s got almost three weeks to make a decision. What about you, though? Where will you stay?” Tony had already confirmed that Mrs. Lane would take the buyout on her lease.

“Someplace close to you,” he said without any hesitation. Of course, the answer made Addie’s neck get all hot.

“Well, we’ve got the business account, so you don’t have to worry about sleeping in an alley.”

He shook his head. “That money’s for the business, and you know what I think we should prioritize.” He was talking about a new Dust reactor for her and an upgraded chip for JJ. He argued that most of their income, so far, was due to her talents with Dust-tech drones and that they ought to maximize her capabilities. A new reactor meant she could run the drones longer, and an upgrade for JJ, allowing him to interface with Dust-tech, would mean he could receive and record footage; she wouldn’t have to collect the drones to get the vid files.

“Yeah, I know, but we’re doing okay. If we need the funds for something else…” She shrugged, and he just grunted, acknowledging receipt of her words. She wouldn’t be unhappy to get a new Dust reactor. Her current limit of thirty units was severely hampering her efforts to learn and practice “Dust adept” abilities. She couldn’t make more than a single hand “fade,” for instance, and the amount of Dust she could channel into electricity was barely enough to give someone a minor jolt.

The door opened, and Addie reached up to grip Tony’s shoulder. “They’re coming out.”

He nodded and whispered, “Try to get a clear shot of faces.”

Addie nodded, wishing her optics were better. Still, they were only ten meters or so from the door, and the lighting was dim, but not too dim. The first person out the door was a woman with silver hair and magenta irises. She was tall and lithe, wearing a skin-tight black bodysuit. She laughed musically and glanced toward Addie and Tony briefly, but it was clear she dismissed them as uninteresting, probably thinking they were just two club goers looking for a quiet spot to talk.

Another woman, broad-shouldered and muscular with short, spiked black hair, followed her. She had dark makeup around her eyes, giving her pale face a kind of skull-like appearance. She wasn’t laughing, and when she strode out, she looked like she had places to be. The last person to exit was a man—slick and street-corpo.

He was the sort of guy you might find selling black market tech or working as a go-between for a big corpo and an organization like the Helldogs. He wore a suit, but not the kind you’d see in a board meeting for a legit company. It shimmered with holographic effects, making the black fabric flicker with golden scales as he walked. When he glanced toward the end of the hallway, he caught Addie’s eye and winked one of his golden irises before turning to follow the two women.

“I got a good look at them all,” she whispered.

“Flick me the vid.”

Addie nodded and did so, sending him a copy of her short-term buffer. Tony’s chrome eye with the amber iris flickered briefly, and he smiled at her. “That’s a crew for sure—some of our competition.” He jerked his chin toward Torque’s muscle. “Let’s go see if big boy will let us in.” They walked over to the door, and Torque’s door guard waved them through.

The fixer was in his usual spot, sitting at his booth. His assistant, Cyan, was also there, quietly working on something in her AUI; she didn’t look up when Addie entered. Torque was quick to acknowledge her, however. “Ember, Ember, Ember! Come on over and have a seat.” He watched as Tony slid into the room, hands in the pockets of his dark coat. “Hey, hey, Shep. People are starting to talk about you two. I got my first request for you earlier today, in fact.”

“Really?” Addie asked before her brain could kick in and tell her to act cool.

“Yep! That’s why I called you in. It’s a serious gig, too, so you ought to be happy, Shepherd.”

Tony slid into the booth beside her and almost lazily ran his gaze over Torque. As usual, the fixer was dressed in a silky shirt with the top buttons undone, displaying his tanned flesh and a heavy, diamond-studded silver cross. He wasn’t wearing any shades this time, and Addie was a little surprised to see he had big, green, natural-looking eyes. When Tony didn’t say anything, Torque continued, “How do you feel about whistleblowers?”

When Tony only frowned, Torque looked at Addie with a raised eyebrow. “Ember?”

“Do you mean a corpo whistleblower? I’m all for ’em, I guess.”

“All for ’em! Hear that, Cyan?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond; he just continued with a rambling spiel, “Boxer’s holding a whistleblower in one of their satellite labs. Word is, they’re trying to decide what to do with him because he’s too valuable to cut loose. My client says he tried to blow the lid off some illegal experiments Boxer is running on not-so-willing subjects. Something to do with Dust, if you can believe it. Anyway, this scientist, a bona fide doctor and humanitarian, is in trouble, and my client wants to get him out.”

Tony finally cleared his throat and spoke. “Not sure we’re ready to go up against Boxer.”

“It’s just a satellite lab! Light security. I wouldn’t bring this job to you if I didn’t think you could handle it.”

Tony frowned, shaking his head. “How’d your client get wind of us?”

“That job you did when you tailed the old man from Trauma North, the, uh, surgical administrator?” When Tony nodded, Torque continued. “I guess you saved quite a few lives when you exposed his side business.”

“Side business?” Tony sounded confused, and Addie could understand why. They’d just followed the man to a vacant storefront on one of the upper floors of the NGT building and recorded the faces of the men he met.

“Let’s just say your footage helped to expose an organ harvester. My clients were impressed that no one had a clue how the footage of his meeting was obtained, and they asked for a ‘discreet team like that.’ Their words. You happen to be that team, so I’d say you qualify.”

Tony shook his head. “Yeah, but breaking a doctor out of a secured facility is a lot different.”

Torque leaned across the table. “You saying you can’t do it?”

Addie knew Tony could do it. She also knew he was hesitating because he was worried about her, so she spoke up, “We can do it.” Tony looked down at her, his face impassive; he wouldn’t let Torque know if he was angry, and he wouldn’t contradict her in front of him, so she knew better than to take his silence as agreement. Still, she pressed on, “What’s the pay?”

“That’s the best part. We’re talking a big-time payday—22k.”

Tony shifted his gaze to Torque and asked, “Timeframe?”

“Client says the doctor’s being forced to work in the lab where they’re holding him, and they don’t think he’ll be moved anytime soon, so you’ve got time for some proper planning.”

“All right.” Tony sniffed and drummed his cybernetic fingers on the table. “Make it 26k; we’ll need to bring on a couple of subs.”

Torque frowned, but Addie could see in his eyes that he wouldn’t argue; he’d held back on the initial offer, and Tony knew it. “Okay, Shep, but only because the client asked for you. Sending the contract over.” He looked over his shoulder. “Cyan?”

“Incoming,” she replied in an almost playful sing-song.

When the file arrived, Addie read through it and saw the details were exactly as Torque had said; they had to rescue a doctor named Victor Kwon from a Boxer satellite laboratory on the district's south side and deliver him to an address on the west side. The timeframe wasn’t open-ended, however. “It says we have six days.”

“Well, that’s just for contract purposes. If you think it’ll take longer, we can probably negotiate a new delivery date, but the payday might be a bit smaller.”

Tony drummed his fingers again, then nodded. “Six days is enough.”

Addie trusted Tony, so she nodded and signed the contract. A few moments later, she received notification that all parties had signed.

“All right, you two! Looks like we’re in business again! Keep me posted, won’t you? This ain’t a small-time job. Get this one done and done right, and it could be a real stepping stone!”

“Later, Torque. See you soon.” Tony slid out of the booth, and Addie followed.

As Tony reached for the door, Torque cleared his throat. “Hey, as always, grab a drink on my tab. No sweat.”

Addie wasn’t sure what possessed her, but she turned and asked, “Won’t you join us?”

“Oh, boy, Ember!” Torque chuckled. “I’m flattered that you want to spend time with an old fixer like me, but I never mix business with pleasure. When I drink, I drink alone. Go on, now, have a good time.” With that, he lifted a pair of deep, impenetrable blue sunglasses from the seat beside him and put them on, blocking his eyes from the world.

Addie followed Tony out, and when they were well past Torque’s bodyguard, he looked at her with a sly half smile. “Really? You want to drink with that guy?”

“I was just being polite.”

“I know.” He bumped her with his elbow. “You’re sweet.”

Addie beamed, grabbing hold of his arm. “I am sweet, aren’t I?”